There's no arguing about it: Boston is a tough place to play baseball. And I'm not talking just about the weather.

Jim Fregosi, one of the toughest men in the game, perhaps said it best when he managed the Phillies to the NL pennant in 1993.

"It takes a special type of person to manage in Philadelphia, New York and Boston," he said. "Not everyone can do it. You have to have a very thick skin."

He's right. Sparky Anderson, Jim Leyland, and Tom Lasorda can be counted among the greatest managers in history. But I don't think any of them would have lasted very long in the Northeast where baseball is more of a religion than a sport. Ditto for Earl Weaver, who, in my opinion, was the greatest manager of them all. But that 90 miles between Philadelphia and Baltimore may as well have been a chasm a thousand miles wide in terms of the pressures, demands, and expectations put on the manager of the Phillies, Yankees, Mets, or Red Sox.

The same is true of the players themselves. Regardless of their talents, many players find it impossible to thrive in those three cities.

Carl Crawford thought he could do it when he signed that seven-year, $142-million contract with the Red Sox after spending the previous years of his career in Tampa Bay, where no one cares very much about the Rays.

The fans, the media, and the talk show hosts were on him about his poor hitting almost from his very first game in a Red Sox uniform.

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It never really got better, and Crawford has pretty much admitted he just couldn't handle the pressure and welcomed the trade to the Dodgers after a miserable year and a half.

"From the outside, you watch guys playing over there and you think you can go and play," Crawford told the Los Angeles media a few days ago. "But you realize once you get there it's a little tougher than you expected.

"There definitely was a dark cloud over me when I was in Boston. I knew with the struggles I was having it would never get better for me. I just didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. It puts you in kind of a depression stage.

"You just don't see a way out."

Now that he's in laid-back LA, he expects to perform up to the standards he did when he played for the Rays and probably will.

"Coming from over there to here is definitely a different feel," he said. "When you start to have those problems is when you lose confidence. I had some issues with that. But I'm at a place where I feel a whole lot better about myself. I just feel like the player I once was right now."

Pressure always on

Yes, Red Sox fans can be hard on their heroes. But when they succeed, especially over a long period of time, they're treated like deities.

Even for the most successful Red Sox players, however, the pressure to perform at a consistently high level never lessens.

That's why so many Red Sox superstars felt the need to escape Fenway Park's pressure cooker after a few years, and sometimes even sooner. I'm talking about immensely talented players like Nomar Garciaparra, Pedro Martinez, Nick Esasky, Bruce Hurst, Jason Bay, and many, many more.

Yet in nearly every instance, those stars wound up regretting that they took the easy route out of Boston. At the end of their playing days, having played in front of indifferent fans, many of them realized the highlights of their careers were with the Red Sox.

Hurst, a Mormon, was always bothered by the drinking on team charters and the loutish behavior of some of his teammates when he pitched for the Red Sox. At the peak of his career he chose free agency and was never the same pitcher he was in Boston. He's admitted he never should have left.

Dwight Evans played the final year of his career as an Oriole and has admitted he should have retired as a Red Sox instead of trying to play one more year. Garciaparra signed a one-day contract so he could retire as a Red Sox. I wouldn't be surprised if Bay regrets not re-signing with the Red Sox. If Jacoby Ellsbury flees after this season, I suspect he, too, will look back someday with regret on his decision to take his talents somewhere else.

Of course, not all of them left by choice.

Back in 1995, the Boston chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America invited players from the 1975 AL Champion Red Sox to their annual dinner for a 20th reunion. Only four players accepted.

When inquiries were made, it was learned that many of the stars from those terrific clubs in the second half of the '70s were bitter that new owners Haywood Sullivan and Buddy LeRoux had broken up the club in 1980. Carlton Fisk, Fred Lynn, Rick Burleson, and others had envisioned finishing their careers in Red Sox uniforms.

The Red Sox, to their credit, set about mending fences with those former players and others. Today, the Red Sox have one of the strongest and most vibrant alumni associations in the game.

Neither Roger Clemens nor Mo Vaughn wanted to leave the Red Sox. But they were both all but forced into free agency by GM Dan Duquette and were bitter about the way their careers ended. I believe Vaughn might have been a Hall of Famer if he'd been allowed to stay and finish his career with the Red Sox. I'm sure Lynn would have been.

Kevin Youkilis is another one who didn't really leave the Red Sox by choice. One of the team's most popular players who never played in front of an unsold seat at Fenway before his abrasive relationship with new manager Bobby Valentine became unbearable, even though he's now a Yankee there's no question which team's heart he wears on his sleeve.

"To negate all the years I played for the Boston Red Sox, and all the tradition, and you look at all the stuff I've piled up in my house, to say I'll just throw it out the window is not true," he told the New York press a few days ago. "I'll always be a Red Sox.

"That's part of your history, it's part of your life. And you can't change that. It was great years in Boston. One bad half-year doesn't take away from all the great years I had there."

In many ways the Red Sox themselves are mirror images of their fans. They gripe a lot. They lose their tempers. The pressure to play well and win is intense.

But there aren't many of them out there who don't love the Red Sox as much the fans do.

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